Help:Style Guide
This page is by no means a complete style guide. If you have never edited a wiki before, you should stop by a more basic tutorial. Wikipedia:Tutorial is suggested for a quick overview, and there are more links in the See Also section of this article. Article Titles Article titles should be in title case (Station Management, not Station management) and "the" should be omitted from the beginning of article titles except where canonical vernacular suggests that its inclusion is probably necessary. Keep the title as short as possible, and include punctuation where canonical, such as for the episode "PYRAMID". For example: ::Arby's vs The Dog Park When Cecil speaks about the dog park, he uses 'the' in front of it not just as a definite article but as a part of the title. When in doubt, choose the version which is most linked to on the list or discuss with fellow editors. Article Format Use sections with section headers where appropriate. Before the first subsection, there should be an introduction explaining briefly what the article is about. The beginning of the first sentence of that introduction should be the article title, bold faced. The introduction for the Night Vale Daily Journal, for example, has the introduction as follows: ::The Night Vale Daily Journal appears to be Night Vale’s only paper. It has gone through a number of changes over the past year, due to a suspicious explosion at the distribution plant and ensuing budgetary issues. The following sections elaborate on the rest of the information we have on the journal. Sections look like "Article Format" above and are created in the source page (without the indent) like so: :: Article Format A table of contents will automatically appear between the introduction and the first subheading if you have enough sections. Writing Style Language in articles does not need to be ultra serious or completely neutral (eg: Feral Dog Pack)). However, articles should lack personal references, and editors should be do their best to stick only to verifiable, factual claims supported directly by the podcast, word of god, or other source material. At this time analysis is acceptable, but it should be sparse and well supportive. Here is an example of a reasonable interjection of personal opinion into an article, pulled from Cecil's page: :: Cecil is quick to praise Night Vale, the City Council, the Sheriff's Secret Police, and any of their policies, no matter how draconian. His broadcasts require a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance, as the information is often contradictory, contains impossible instructions, or is banned midway through and must be renounced. Note how the claims have been backed up, and the opinion adds something to the discussion of who Cecil is within the podcast. An example of bad analysis might look something like: ::Cecil is quick to praise Night Vale, because he's probably the personification fo Night Vale. The second half of the sentence is a nice headcanon, but isn't currently verifiable. Quotes : Many of our content pages have quotes at the beginning of the article, and many do not. At this time no consensus has been reached about whether or not we should keep them, but your opinion would be welcomed on the talk page subject Linking : Wiki convention is to only link to related articles the first time the related article is mentioned, unless the article is very long and the related article is key to understanding the article you are writing. We do not yet have any articles long enough to justify linking more than once. Also, please do not put two links right next to each other where possible. Episode Titles : Italicise episode titles so that they are easily distinguished from non-episodes with the same name. Categories Please try to remember to add new pages to the categories they belong in. Before creating a new category, make sure there are at least three things that qualify. Name the category based on the same rules mentioned previously for naming articles. If you don't know what category a page belongs in, or if you aren't sure, start a discussion on the talk page. Pictures As discussed in our wiki's policy, please only use official art/merchandise pictures which we have permission to use. Document the permission on the wiki. Other fanart is not acceptable at this time. See Also The Wikipedia Manual of Style is utterly comprehensive. If our style guide has not said explicitly otherwise, you can assume that the Wikipedia MoS will likely point you in the right direction. Wikipedia: Your first article if you are thinking of making a new content page for the WtNV wiki. Welcome to Night Vale Wiki talk:Community Portal or the talk page for this article. *